1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a system that provides for franking postage for any given country; purchasing private courier postage; comparing rates of various courier services; optimizing postage rates; purchasing telephonically postage for the necessary service; tracking customer usage; and, printing the postmark of the corresponding service and amount directly on the parcel envelope or specially designed labels.
2. Background of the Prior Art
In preparing for this application, several U.S. patents became known to the inventors hereof. This resulted from a review of Class 364/Subclasses 464.02 and 464.03, which uncovered the following patents:
______________________________________ ITEM NO. U.S. Pat. No. INVENTOR ISSUE DATE ______________________________________ 1 4,511,793 Racanelli 04/16/1985 2 4,837,701 Sansone et al. 06/06/1989 3 4,900,904 Wright et al. 02/13/1990 4 4,949,272 Vanourek et al. 08/14/1990 5 4,998,204 Sansone et al. 03/05/1991 6 5,024,282 Raikes et al. 06/18/1991 7 5,040,132 Schuricht et al. 08/13/1991 8 5,065,000 Pusic 11/12/1991 9 5,068,797 Sansone et al. 11/26/1991 10 5,070,463 Schuricht et al. 12/03/1991 11 5,077,792 Herring 12/31/1991 12 5,079,712 Ileana et al. 01/07/1992 13 5,117,364 Barns-Slavin et al. 05/26/1992 14 5,121,328 Sakai et al. 06/09/1992 15 5,124,926 Barns-Slavin et al. 06/23/199 16 5,161,109 Keating et al. 11/03/1992 17 5,233,532 Ramsden 08/03/1993 18 5,272,640 Wu 12/21/1993 ______________________________________